the heaped ashes of the night turned into leaves again

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I love mornings in this house.

And these words: "This also is Thou; neither is this Thou." (St. Ephrem)

And this: "How can I live now with my heart open to the things that memory will call lovely?"

[in my kitchen, these days of living alone]
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for grace

A few things, recently:

Jessica Ingram's Road Through Midnight: A Civil Rights Memorial at CDS. Such a beautiful, haunting exhibit. I still cannot believe I get to work at this place that I love so much.

Elephant Micah + Joan Shelley at Dear Hearts a few weeks back.

Today I tasted a sweetness long forgotten, something I have not known since those days of fierce independence, when I was in step with my own longings, attentive to the world, patient with myself. It is what I have been praying for, wanting back, feeling as if I had perhaps lost forever amidst these months and years of saying for grace, for grace, for grace.

And these words, from that summer of forgetting long ago:

Walk

Some things are solved by walking
in the night alone, striped by light

in the corridors of unknowing, you walk
down the street, past the rosemary hedge,

the wet hydrangeas that eat your shadow,
your shadow like a cookie that the sun

cut out of you—sun-stalker, you say
to the blue mouths: but then there is

the ping-pong moon, the warts of the
weeping willow, the uprooted crack

waiting to fault you for lack of confidence:

this is the world of Walla Walla,
of couching black blistered beetles—

don’t even try to run,
the only way is to walk.

[honeywell pentax, 35mm film, balancing rock, nc; words from seattle]

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heading home again

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These are the Ellie-days, when we talk about being scared, and being brave, and sit at a picnic table and use gel pens to draw pictures of leaves, and run as fast as we can (which is still not fast enough to beat the other kids, for both of us, and that's okay), and share tootsie rolls stashed in our pockets. They are the better days.

[all pictures from my holga]

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in the shadow of your wings

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Every autumn is different and somehow the same. This one has been about returning home, rain on the windshield, climbing apple trees, late mornings, pumpkin cinnamon rolls, denim dresses, moonlight, the loudest yellow trees, and the simplest prayers. This autumn has been like when you relax in someone's arms because you feel safe and at home. It has been about shadows and light and silent wings.

This past weekend a few friends and I journeyed back thirteen hours to my house. We went apple picking and slept in and ate butternut squash. We went to the Gryphon and Good Sam and St. Peter's and all my favorite places. Now we are back at school and I have been spending all weekend writing a paper. It is good to be back, and it is good to have gone home. You know, as if I had to remember, God is very kind.

[all photos from a disposable camera this weekend]
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baked oatmeal recipes

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Just look at all these scrumptious baked oatmeal recipes from A Beautiful Mess. I told my Mom over fall break that I wish I could just increase the size of my stomach for a few days, because the amount of cooking I wanted to do didn't equal the amount of food my stomach can hold for three days. So the pumpkin spice oatmeal will just have to wait until Thanksgiving break . . .

(Oh, but. I did try a pumpkin chai latte with almond milk at the airport on my trek back to school on Tuesday. And oh my goodness - it is a tasty little drink. I'm scheming my way to get another one soon.)

[picture from A Beautiful Mess]
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ten good things

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grateful for all this. and more.

01. homemade cinnamon almond biscotti
02. wind on my face at dusk on an autumn evening
03. conversations on swing sets in the moonlight
04. walking through the baggage terminal and seeing my mother's face
05. sleep sleep sleep mmmm
06. a (rare) positive comment from my photography professor
07. cooking alone in a quiet sun-bathed kitchen
08. snuggling down in between my own familiar gingham sheets (they always smell right)
09. a little sketchbook from a dear friend
10. face to face late night talks with amy

one more day at home [a run with derek, apple picking, reading, shopping, walking in the woods?] - and then back to school. not sure if I am ready for another round.

and these words:

"Don't just do something, sit there.
And so I have, so I have.
The seasons curling around me like smoke,
Gone to the end of the earth and back without sound."
(Adam Zagajewski, from My Aunts)

oh, and these images + text.

[picture from last fall on campus]
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october afternoons

The weather has been unseasonably warm recently. And oh! how I adore it. Spent an afternoon on the quad with Torunn one afternoon last week. We laid on a quilt and let the leaves fall on us and stared at the sky and talked for awhile.

I have been tired and stressed the past week or two. But you know, sometimes I just stop and am overwhelmed by all the grace too. Sunday afternoon I wandered alone to this great big field a few blocks away from the college. I only had half an hour, but I laid in the grass and let my body breathe in the sunshine and let my hands dig down into the grass and let my thoughts become tangled prayers. The grace is always there - I just have to slow down long enough to find it. How do I always forget this?

I have been obsessing a bit over Mary Oliver, I know - but this poem is too good:

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
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when autumn flares out

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Had a lovely day with some friends last weekend at a local oktemberfest celebration . . . we bought a little disposable camera to document the day along the way and these are (some of) the results. Root beer + the first time wearing sweaters + wandering through old neighborhoods and churchyards + listening to records + long train rides into the city + zucchini races + the smell of smoke + the Western Philosophers + mugs of duchess grey tea.

Happy first day of fall . . .

Fall Song
by Mary Oliver

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.